Former Uvalde educator recounts asking 911, ‘Where are the cops?’ in emotional testimony

(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) —  Editor’s note: Some of the testimony described below may be distressing to some readers.

Robb Elementary School’s former afterschool coordinator, Emilia “Amy” Marin-Franco, held back tears and visibly shook in her seat when she testified on Thursday in the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales.

Gonzales, who was one of nearly 400 law enforcement officers to respond to the Robb Elementary School mass shooting, is charged with child endangerment for allegedly ignoring his training during the botched police response. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed, and investigations have faulted the police response and suggested that a 77-minute delay in police mounting a counterassault could have contributed to the carnage.

Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his legal team says he did all he could to help students.

Marin testified that on May 24, 2022, she saw a man crash his truck near the school. She was one of the first people to call 911 — first to report the crash, and then realized he was armed and heading to the school. 

Jurors heard her 911 call, in which Marin simultaneously tried to get police to respond while encouraging students to hide.

“There is a guy with a gun. … Oh my god. I think he came on campus now,” she told a dispatcher, while telling students, “Come on guys, hurry.”

In deeply emotional testimony, she told the jury, “I kept asking the operator, ‘Where are the cops? Where are the cops?’ And I tell her, ‘There are kids running everywhere.'”

Marin told jurors that she feared for her and her students’ lives as she sheltered in a classroom and heard countless gunshots. 

“They were like, nonstop,” she said. “I thought, ‘He’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me. I’m going to die, I’m going to die.'”

She testified that she tried to come up with a plan to disarm the shooter if he were to find her. 

“I’m looking at the floor and I’m thinking, ‘I’ll tackle him from his ankles and knock him down with my shoulder. Get up on the counter, when he comes in, jump on his back, poke his eyes out, take his gun away from him,'” she said. 

A prosecutor tried to ask Marin to describe what that moment was like.

“The feeling of that type of fear is something that only someone can understand who’s been through a mass shooting,” she said. “You won’t understand if you haven’t experienced it and I don’t wish it on anybody.”

“Is it an ugly feeling?” the prosecutor asked. 

“It haunts me to this day,” she said.  

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Marin was falsely accused of leaving a door open that allowed the shooter to enter. She testified about removing a rock that was briefly used to prop the door open. During a brief cross-examination, defense attorneys used the testimony to highlight how Robb Elementary had issues with doors remaining unlocked. 

Earlier on Thursday, Judge Sid Harle sided with defense lawyers and instructed jurors to completely disregard the testimony of former teacher Stephanie Hale, who was a key prosecution witness.

Hale returned to the stand for an hour Thursday morning in an effort to salvage her testimony, but defense lawyers ultimately argued that allowing her testimony to stand would endanger Gonzales’ right to a fair trial.

“There’s no doubt that this was crucial to the [defense] strategy,” Harle said. “I don’t think I have any choice, having denied the mistrial — other than to craft a remedy that will protect the due process rights and hopefully avoid any appellate review that would result in this case being reversed —  so I am reluctantly going to instruct the jury to disregard her testimony in its entirety.”

Before instructing the jury, the judge personally thanked Hale for her testimony and emphasized that she was not at fault.

“I want to emphasize that you did absolutely nothing wrong. It’s not on you,” the judge said. “I want to tell you, just from personal experience, memories of traumatic events change.”

When Hale was on the stand Thursday, defense attorney Jason Goss attempted to point out that her original account — provided to state investigators four days after the 2022 shooting — differed from what she told the jury on Tuesday. 

Hale testified that she saw the shooter near the south side of Robb Elementary and saw him firing toward her and her students. Defense lawyers alleged she never gave that information to state investigators. 

“Seeing a shooter, and being shot at, are important details, you would agree with that?” Goss said. 

“It depends on who you are,” she responded. “I don’t know. I guess possibly.”

Goss pointed out inconsistencies in her description of events over the last three years, such as how she learned about the shooter and his location. 

“I’m not very good with directions,” Hale remarked about the location of the shooter. 

During re-direct examination, Hale clarified that she told the grand jury about seeing clouds of dust near the playground, which suggested to her that she and her students were being shot at. She acknowledged, however, that she did not initially see the shooter with her own eyes. 

Hale told defense lawyers that it was “kind of implied” that she saw the shooter based on her comments about seeing the dust clouds.